A Scientific Spiritual Philosophy

By Blair A. Moffett

A great deal of idle nonsense has been published since 1875 about
the modern theosophical movement and its sponsors, a little-known
order of Adepts, Masters of wisdom, compassion and peace. A careful
review of their letters and articles written in the 1880s is eye-opening:
it shows they made an effort to respond to every important question
troubling the thinkers, scientists and scholars of that era --
a rather remarkable performance by any standard. The Adepts came
forward with explanations based on their own comprehensive perspective
of reality. It was up to Western investigators and students to
take and prove or to disdain the data freely proffered from sources
ordinarily occult or esoteric. But they emphasized that they were
not interested in the growth of knowledge for its own sake; that
neither exact science nor any other branch of scholarship could
make claim upon them unless its activity would promote the amelioration
of the sum of human misery.

What was the condition of human knowledge then? The 19th century
was a critical one in the history of thought. It witnessed the
great struggle between an empirical science and an orthodox religious
theology, with the year 1859 forming a major watershed. Scientific
investigators made strenuous efforts to discover what are space,
time, gravity, light, sound, electricity and magnetism, heat,
force and energy, and matter itself. The nature of life, especially
"organic" life, was pondered. It was a time of extensive
theory construction based on laboratory experiments and mathematical
formulae and equations. Physical science became the "great
explainer" capturing the luminous zone of the public mind.
Nothing was left upon which the soul -- man's vital consciousness
-- could build, and the times were impelled toward an extreme
agnosticism grounded in rank materialism. Something was needed
to guide men's thinking toward a more balanced vision of themselves
and the universe, to prevent their spiritual impulses from falling
back into flagrant superstition and sacerdotalism. Not surprisingly,
then, the Adepts devoted considerable attention to the findings
and practitioners of science, whose ranks included intuitive as
well as materialistic thinkers, some of the former joining the
nascent theosophical movement.

Taking advantage of questions on physical science put to them
by two English members -- A. P. Sinnett, a newspaper editor in
India, and F. W. H. Myers, one of the founders of the Society
for Psychical Research in 1882 -- two Adepts, Kuthumi and Morya,
generally known by the initials K.H. and M., offered their findings
in the light of their own scientific spiritual philosophy. Additional
material was later included in The Secret Doctrine by
H. P. Blavatsky, published in 1888 with their consent. Perhaps
the best way to show their wider knowledge is to compare some
of their statements with later scientific discoveries.

The Nature of Matter

Science a hundred years ago believed the matter of the universe
was composed of ultimate particles, the indivisible, "billiard-ball"
atoms, which by combining formed the elements. Matter was found
to exist in three states -- solids, liquids, and gases -- but
the nature of energy, electricity and magnetism was a mystery.

Sinnett and Myers were told by the Adepts that the matter of science,
far from being the Primary Element, was the most differentiated
and hence the lowest of seven states of substance; that
it forms but one pole of the manifested stuff of the solar system,
the other -- and inseparable -- pole being energic life and consciousness.
All manifestation is bipolar and is evolving. Solids, liquids
and gases are only the first three conditions of substance on
this plane, the Adepts identifying the "radiant matter"
of Sir William Crookes as its fourth. A fifth state they termed
"extra-radiant," and said that the visible sun is composed
of substance in its sixth and seventh states -- totally distinct
from any found on earth. H. P. Blavatsky explained:

It is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of matter, and the
infinite divisibility of the atom, that the whole science of Occultism
is built. It opens limitless horizons to substance informed
by the divine breath of its soul in every possible state of tenuity.
-- The Secret Doctrine 1:520

Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895 led to the revelation by
J. J. Thomson two years later of sub-atomic particles
-- electrons -- foreshadowed in Crookes' "radiant matter."
This divisible atom upset all former theories of matter derived
from classical Newtonian physics, and ushered in modern or New
Physics. In 1900 Max Planck showed that matter radiated electromagnetic
waves which behave like a stream of particles (photons) and obey
a universal constant in nature: small, indivisible quanta
of energy expelled one at a time according to a whole-number
progression. Radiation is both wavelike and corpuscular
-- a contradiction according to classical physics! In his 1905
theory of relativity Albert Einstein added recognition that mass
or substance is equivalent to energy and that time
and space are integral factors of the substance-energy
continuum making up the universe (see pp. 91, 109, The New
World of Physics, by A. March and I. M. Freeman, 1963). Niels
Bohr used these advances to devise the first practical theory
of atomic structure in 1913; it showed the atom to be a replica
in micro-dimension of the solar system of macro-dimension: a central,
positively charged nucleus around which circled varying numbers
of particles, much as planets circle a sun. Then in 1931 Planck
summed up all of physics' progress by writing that

the final consequence of the researches which were directed towards
discovering the inner constitution of matter within the past fifty
years is the knowledge that all matter is made up of two primordial
elements: negative electricity and positive electricity. -- The
New Science, 11

"Substance" thus is dual in nature and disappears into
"energy." The universe is composed of "matter"
and "antimatter." So illusive has matter become that
contemporary physicists now state that an electron is neither
a particle nor a wave, "but an entity that defies every attempt
at pictorial description" (The New World of Physics,
p. 133). It is no longer legitimate to ascribe to elementary
particles the substantiality of pellets of matter. They are nonmaterial
structures, and the New Physics has become metaphysics because
it deals with factors beyond visibility and natural law that can
be coped with only by a statistical law known as the "principle
of indeterminacy." This recalls another statement Blavatsky
made in 1888 that the physicist

. . . must first know what an atom is, in reality, and that he
cannot know. He must bring it under the observation of at
least one of his physical senses -- and that he cannot
do; for the simple reason that no one has ever seen,
smelt, heard, touched or tasted an "atom."
The atom belongs wholly to the domain of metaphysics. It . . .
has nought to do with physics, strictly speaking, as it can never
be brought to the test of retort or balance. -- S.D. 1:513

The Sun: Source of Matter

In the 1880s the sun's substance was thought to consist of gases
in combustion at intensely hot temperatures. Writing to Sinnett
in October 1882, K.H. denied such gaseous combustion, inasmuch
as the sun we see is "but a reflection." He said the
sun takes back nothing from its system, yet gives the latter all
its seven states of substance through an inexhaustible radiant
energy.

Yes; call it "Radiant Energy" if you will: we call it
Life -- all pervading, omnipresent life, ever at work in its great
laboratory -- the SUN. -- The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett,
168

By 1940 science had shown the sun as not hot in terms of ordinary
combustion, but as consisting of "a mechanical mixture of
pure elementary substances," and George Gamow then wrote:

We must therefore imagine the interior of the Sun as some kind
of gigantic natural alchemical laboratory where the transformation
of various elements into one another takes place. -- The Birth
and Death of the Sun 2:89

Our stellar body is now described by scientists as a "cosmic
energy plant" or, as James Van Allen recently put it, "that
nuclear physics laboratory called the sun." This view came
to the fore only after 1939 when Hans Bethe first explained the
transformation of hydrogen -- the simplest element -- into helium
in the sun. In 1957 a definitive scientific analysis showed that
in all the stars processes are going on which build up the simplest
elements one by one into more and more complex structures. Today
scientists attempt on earth to duplicate conditions of matter
as they are thought to be in the sun in an attempt to understand
the process of "fusion" by which stars create elementary
substances. But that is not all: it is now believed that, as the
English mathematician, the late Jacob Bronowski, put it in 1973:

Matter itself evolves. The word comes from Darwin and
biology, but it is a word that has changed physics in my lifetime.
-- The Ascent of Man, 344

If the foregoing record of utterances does not demonstrate that
the Adepts long ago acquired through their own means a very advanced
knowledge of the nature of the solar system if not of the cosmos
itself, even additional citations probably will not. What is clear
is that what science calls matter -- the vehicular or substantial
pole of the duality of manifestation, the other pole being, in
the Masters' view, life-energy-consciousness -- evolves forth
from stars -- from our sun in our own system. Beginning
there as relatively homogeneous substance, matter assumes steadily
more complex, graded differentiations until it reaches the "heaviest"
complexity native to our physical plane.* Thus the sun has been
found to be the primary source not alone of the energy in
our solar system but also of the graded substances composing
it. Perhaps the ancients' term of gratitude and respect, "Father
Sun," was after all not so unscientific!

*Even heavier elements than any existing on earth have been 'created'
by science in the laboratory; but these do not hold together for
long. This is strongly suggestive of the modern theosophic concept
that such elements represent structures of "matter"
which are not native to our own but to worlds of being 'below'
ours in terms of materiality and utterly unknown to us.

The Question of Jupiter

Asked by Sinnett about the planet Jupiter, in October 1882 K.H.
wrote:

In its present position in space imperceptibly small though it
be -- the metallic substances of which it is mainly composed are
expanding and gradually transforming themselves into aeriform
fluids -- and becoming part of its atmosphere.-- Mahatma Letters,
167

Little was known about Jupiter's composition even early in the
present century. In the 1950s science held several theories about
it. One, proposed by W. R. Ramsey, believed Jupiter to consist
mainly of hydrogen. Commenting on this in 1954 the British Astronomer,
Patrick Moore, wrote:

If hydrogen is responsible for 80 per cent. of Jupiter's mass,
there will be no fundamental difference between the centre and
the outer layers, except that the terrific pressure near the centre
will compress the hydrogen gas so much that it will actually start
to behave like a metal, not like a gas at all. -- Guide to
the Planets, 116

Not, however, until the tiny unmanned spacecraft, Pioneer 10,
passed within 81,000 miles of Jupiter in December 1973, could
science confirm or negate these ideas. After data from the flight
had been analyzed, "Jupiter's New Look" was published
about September 1974. It presented that planet as composed mainly
of hydrogen and helium gases laced with clouds of ammonia crystals
and water ice, surrounding a large inner sphere of "liquid
metallic hydrogen" -- making Jupiter a great ball of whirling
gases and metallic liquids with no solid surface.

The Nature of the Moon

Until a few years ago science held several theories about the
moon, some little changed since the late 19th century: that it
was torn from the earth's side in a comparatively late stage when
the earth had already cooled off to a liquid state and its surface
probably covered with a thin, solid crust; that the earth and
moon condensed simultaneously, as neighbors, from the same mass
of primordial dust; and, that the moon was a body accidentally
captured by the earth's gravity. By the mid-1950s it seemed more
likely the moon had always been a separate world, but lunar theories
have usually assumed the moon to be younger than the earth. Recent
estimates of the latter's age, based on isotopic composition of
terrestrial lead ore, range from four to five billion years. Radiometric
tests have given the oldest known terrestrial rocks an
age of about 3.5 billion years.

In mid-1969 the Apollo 11 lunar expedition produced moon rocks
tested at 3.5 to four billion years old, and the later Apollo
12 team returned lunar soil particles given a test-age Of some
4.6 billion years! This is about one billion years older than
any known terrestrial rock. Moreover it equates with science's
estimated age for the earth and solar system itself. Because the
same kind of test was applied to both terrestrial and lunar rocks,
the comparison of their respective ages is valid regardless of
whether radiometrics yield true ages in terms of actual
years of time. These findings astonished some scientists. The
moon's comparative age, plus notable differences in lunar and
earth chemistry, appear to have ruled out the general theory of
lunar formation from a fragment ripped from the earth. Moreover,
the Apollo evidence suggests that the moon has not been heated
for billions of years by volcanism or any other "living"
process like those observed on live planets, remaining unchanged
since long before the first life is thought to have appeared on
earth.

Shortly before the Apollo landings the Nobel Laureate Chemist,
Harold Urey, had observed that "all explanations for the
origin of the moon are improbable." Urey had recorded his
belief that the moon may be considerably older than the earth,
a relic of objects dating from the earliest period of the solar
system's formation. He believed this would make of it a "far
more interesting" object of investigation than if the moon
were a mere daughter of the earth (The New York Times, August
25, 1969).

According to the statements of M. and K.H., made in the 1880s,
the moon is much older than the earth, being in fact the latter's
ancestor or progenitor. The moon is now, they said, the
relatively lifeless "ghost" or astral shade of the earth,
having long ago bequeathed its vitality to the new planet. That
it still gives some vital energies to the earth and draws upon
the latter electromagnetically, is shown in its influences over
earth tides and the growth cycles of plant life. Other remaining
exchanges of energies between earth and moon, unknown to science
as yet, remain a distinct probability in the theosophical view
because of their cosmogonic relationship. Although the full report
of lunar expedition findings has not yet been issued, those which
have been shared with the public tend to support rather than refute
the Masters' teaching about the moon.

The Earth's Protective Shield

Queried by Sinnett whether magnetic conditions and the sun affect
earth's weather, in October 1882 K.H. referred to the "meteoric
continent above our heads" which he said was a mass
of strongly magnetic meteoric dust that the earth attracts because
it itself is an electrified conductor. Every atmospheric change
and disturbance, he added, is due to the combined magnetism of
the "two great masses" -- the earth and the "meteoric
continent" between which our atmosphere is compressed. The
sun has little to do with atmospheric phenomena.

High above our earth's surface the air is impregnated and space
filled with magnetic, or meteoric, dust, which does not
even belong to our solar system. . . . [there are] strong magnetic
poles above the surface of the earth . . . and one of these poles
revolves around the north pole in a periodical cycle of several
hundred years. -- Mahatma Letters, 161-2, 167-8

In February 1958 the unmanned rocket, Explorer I, discovered that
lying between 1-3,400 miles above the geomagnetic equator and
within earth's magnetic envelope is an enormous doughnut-shaped
belt of trapped protons and electrons, generated by cosmic rays
(i.e., from outside the solar system). The following December
another rocket, Pioneer III, discovered a second, bowl-shaped
belt from 8-12,000 miles out that covers the whole globe except
the poles, in whose latitudes its extreme edges dip low enough
to touch the outer atmosphere. This belt traps charged particles
such as ultraviolet and X-rays, allowing only relatively few to
escape and enter the atmosphere at the poles where their descent
creates the phenomena of the auroras. Called the Van Allen belts
after their discoverer, these hitherto unknown protective zones
around the earth screen out high-energy particles continuously
bombarding our planet, which otherwise might destroy life on its
surface. Astronomers now believe that two are really one great
belt filled with particles.

Making allowance for the lack of suitable technical language in
the 1880s to describe such phenomena, the words of K.H. strongly
suggest the Van Allen radiation belts. Or, more accurately, the
cause of those belts: enormous relatively permanent strata
of magnetized meteoric matter or dust that function as traps for
radiation from the sun and outer space.

Other questions commented upon by the Adepts, such as the genesis
and size of the universe and the nature of electricity and magnetism,
must be deferred because of considerations of space. That their
views were far in advance of 19th-century discoveries and shed
a quiet but astonishing light on findings that science was to
make only in the 20th century becomes crystal clear from the record.
It verifies that the Adepts are indeed advanced men possessing
an unusual knowledge of the facts of nature beyond that of Western
science. The balanced approach they displayed toward problems
of life and learning, the careful, tactful treatment accorded
Westerners with whom they corresponded, and their open-eyed dedication
to solid human progress rather than to fantastic or unrealistic
objectives, all inspire us ordinary men with much confidence in
them and their purposes. A study of their writings will dissipate
any consternation we may feel that such unusual humans exist.
We come to realize they are getting on with their tasks
for the world, expect us to get on with ours, and will
help us insofar as circumstances and we ourselves allow.